A Facebook link today directed me to a Russian online report that the Russian conductor, Valery Gergiev, interrupted a performance at Covent Garden on Saturday to make a speech. He told the audience that in support of the Russian punk girl-band Pussy Riot he was standing down from his post at the Mariinsky Theatre, and that he was not going to return to Russia so long as its system of justice was perverted by government – a government that saw itself as the dominant male in a group of primates, a government that would tolerate no expression of opposition. He broke his baton in front of the audience and said that the performance was over. If anybody wanted to return their tickets he would reimburse the theatre himself.

Wow, I thought. Good for him. Then I thought, have the Olympics so skewed our news values that this hasn't been reported at all? So I went hunting.One difficulty is that the Opera House at Covent Garden happens not to have any shows at the moment.But it also turns out that the report was a hoax; that the website is called Fognews, and is known for making up its stories. Its name sounds remarkably like another news organisation also known for making up its stories. But in the case of Fognews, in this instance at least, to a good end – in my view. 

Except, what does this achieve? Gergiev has unfortunately disowned the story and his alleged support for Pussy Riot: no surprise there, really, as he has always supported Putin. If an invented story relates what its authors wishes were the case – and we might agree – in order to publicise a particular view in a country where that view is being comprehensively squished, but the story is not true, in the long run does it help or does it hinder?